AND THE THIRD ANGEL FOLLOWED THEM, SAYING WITH A LOUD VOICE, IF ANY MAN WORSHIP THE BEAST AND HIS IMAGE, AND RECEIVE HIS MARK IN HIS FOREHEAD, OR IN HIS HAND.
*** REVELATION 14:9

Friday, April 08, 2016

The Establishment Clause: Separation of Church and State

Assign Concept Reading

As part of the First Amendment's religious freedom guarantees, the Establishment Clause requires a separation of church and state.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

Describe the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.

Distinguish the Establishment Clause from other clauses of the First Amendment

KEY POINTS

The Establishment Clause prohibits the creation of a national religion, and also prohibits the US government from favoring one religion over another or excessively entangling itself with religious issues or groups.

Thomas Jefferson is often cited as being the one who introduced the concept of the separation of church and state.
The Establishment Clause has been incorporated against the states via theFourteenth Amendment. However, the process has been tricky, as it is argued that the Fourteenth Amendment speaks to individual rights, while the Establishment Clause does not.

The Supreme Court has made judgments on three main questions: can the US government give financial assistance to religious groups? Is state-sanctioned prayer in public schools acceptable? Are religious displays in government-affiliated places acceptable?

The "Lemon Test," established by Lemon v. Kurtzman (1971) provided a three-part test for determining whether or not a law or act violates the Establishment Clause.

Thomas Jefferson (April 13, 1743 (April 2, 1743 O.S.) – July 4, 1826) was an American Founding Father, the principal author of the Declaration of Independence (1776) and the third President of the United States (1801–1809).

a pronouncement in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution which prohibits both the establishment of a national religion by Congress, and the preference by the U.S. government of one religion over another

a method of measuring weather a government action violates the Establishment Clause of the United States' constitution concerning religion. To pass the test, the action must have a secular legislative purpose, must not have the primary effect of either advancing or inhibiting religion, and must not result in an "excessive government entanglement" with religion.

FULL TEXT

The Establishment Clause

The Establishment Clause in the First Amendment to the Constitution states, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion. " Together with the Free Exercise Clause ("... or prohibiting the free exercise thereof"), these two clauses make up what are called the "religion clauses" of the First Amendment.

The Establishment Clause has generally been interpreted to prohibit (1) the establishment of a national religion by Congress, or (2) the preference by the U.S. government of one religion over another. The first approach is called the "separation" or "no aid" interpretation, while the second approach is called the "non-preferential" or "accommodation" interpretation. The accommodation interpretation prohibits Congress from preferring one religion over another, but does not prohibit the government's entry into religious domain to make accommodations in order to achieve the purposes of the Free Exercise Clause.
The "Wall of Separation"

Thomas Jefferson wrote that the First Amendment erected a "wall of separation between church and state", likely borrowing the language from Roger Williams, founder of the Colony of Rhode Island . James Madison, often regarded as the "Father of the Bill of Rights", also often wrote of the "perfect separation", "line of separation", and "total separation of the church from the state. "

Incorporation of the Establishment Clause in 1947 has been tricky and subject to much more critique than incorporation of the Free Exercise Clause. The controversy surrounding Establishment Clause incorporation primarily stems from the fact that one of the intentions of the Establishment Clause was to prevent Congress from interfering with state establishments of religion that existed at the time of the founding.

Critics have also argued that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment is understood to incorporate only individual rights found in the Bill of Rights; the Establishment Clause, unlike the Free Exercise Clause (which critics readily concede protects individual rights), does not purport to protect individual rights.

Controversy Over the Establishment Clause

Controversy rages in the United States between those who wish to restrict government involvement with religious institutions and remove religious references from government institutions and property, and those who wish to loosen suchprohibitions. Advocates for stronger separation of church and state emphasize the plurality of faiths and non-faiths in the country, and what they see as broad guarantees of the federal Constitution. Their opponents emphasize what they see as the largely Christian heritage and history of the nation (often citing the references to "Nature's God" and the "Creator" of men in the Declaration of Independence).

Main Questions of the Establishment Clause

One main question of the Establishment Clause is: does government financial assistance to religious groups violate the Establishment Clause? The Supreme Court first considered this issue in Bradfield v. Roberts (1899). The federal government had funded a hospital operated by a Roman Catholic institution. In that case, the Court ruled that the funding was to a secular organization—the hospital—and was therefore permissible.

Another main question is: should state-sanctioned prayer or religion in public schools be allowed? The Supreme Court has consistently held fast to the rule of strict separation of church and state in this issue. In Engel v. Vitale (1962) the Court ruled that government-imposed nondenominational prayer in public school was unconstitutional. In Lee v. Weisman (1992), the Court ruled prayer established by a principal at a middle school graduation was also unconstitutional, and in Santa Fe Independent School Dist. v. Doe (2000) it ruled that school officials may not directly or indirectly impose student-led prayer during high school football games .

Lastly, are religious displays in public places allowed under the Establishment Clause? The inclusion of religious symbols in public holiday displays came before the Supreme Court in Lynch v. Donnelly (1984), and again in Allegheny County v. Greater Pittsburgh ACLU (1989). In the former case, the Court upheld a public display, ruling that any benefit to religion was "indirect, remote, and incidental. " In Allegheny County, however, the Court struck down a display that had more overt religious themes .

The distinction between force of government and individual liberty is the cornerstone of such cases. Each case restricts acts by government designed to establish a religion, while affirming peoples' individual freedom to practice their religions. The Court has therefore tried to determine a way to deal with church/state questions. In Lemon v. Kurtzman (1971), the Court created a three part test for laws dealing with religious establishment. This determined that a law related to religious practices was constitutional if it:
Had a secular purpose;
Neither advanced nor inhibited religion; and,
Did not foster an excessive government entanglement with religion.

Thomas Jefferson argued that people should be free to adopt atheism., Americans universally feared state-sponsored religion, because they had come from Britain to escape religious persecution., James Madison advocated for the separation of church and state as a way of avoiding religious conflicts like the ones in England and Russia., or Before the establishment clause, nine of the thirteen original colonies supported a single religion.Which of the following statements about the establishment clause of the First Amendment is FALSE?

The establishment clause does not always protect individual rights, The free exercise clause stresses financial assistance to religious groups, The free exercise clause applies only to naturalized citizens, or The establishment clause was incorporated to deal only with Supreme Court cases

MISSION STATEMENT

To share with friends and brethren The Gospel of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ (the Everlasting Gospel), and to prepare a people to stand when He returns to redeem His remnant.

Also, to share relevant information of current events, and to show how they relate to prophecy; By means of articles, editorials, opinions, scripture readings, and poetry.

The Catholic-Judeo U. S. Supreme Court

5 Roman Catholics, 1 Episcopal (RC Light), and 3 Jews

Provision for the propagation of papal falsehoods

...our country shall repudiate every principle of its Constitution as a Protestant and republican government, and shall make provision for the propagation of papal falsehoods and delusions, then we may know that the time has come for the marvelous working of Satan and that the end is near. Testimonies for the Church, Vol. 5, p.451.

The Fresh Air Fund

THE FRESH AIR FUND, an independent, not-for-profit agency, has provided free summer vacations to more than 1.7 million New York City children from low-income communities since 1877. (Click on image to donate)

Sunset Calendar

Click on Picture for Sunset- Sunrise Calendar for your location.

Freedom

We do not have freedom because the Constitution gives it to us; The Creator gives us our rights. The Constitution was written to keep the government from taking our rights away. We have rights granted by God and not by men; such rights as life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

THE HOLY BIBLE

The King James Version is in the public domain in the United States; you may copy and quote from it without restriction. The other Bibles at the Bible Gateway: (http://www.biblegateway.com), however, are not in the public domain, unless otherwise specified.

THE GREAT CONTROVERSY

(The Great Controversy), unveils the often unseen battle between Christ and Satan, and looks ahead to the day sin’s reign will end, and Jesus will rule as King of kings and Lord of lords.

THE SECRET TERRORISTS

"A secret terrorist organization has been working within to destroy America, its Constitution, and everything for which she stands"..(Click on pic)

The Enemy Unmasked

As one looks at the history of nations, from Babylon to Rome to America, it is evident that a Divine hand was protecting and guiding America..(Click on pic)

Foxe's Book of Martyrs

This book by John Foxe (1517 - 1587) is beyond doubt one of the great Christian classics in English- Read it on line (Click on Picture)

Fifty Years in The Church of Rome

The life story of Charles Chiniquy, who was a priest in the Roman Catholic Church for 25 years.

Earth's Final Hours

Click on image to read this book.

The Two Babylons

Where did the practices and beliefs of Roman Catholicism come from? In this scholarly classic, first published over eighty years ago, Alexander Hislop reveals that many Roman Catholic teachings did not originate with Christ or the Bible, but were adopted from ancient pagan Babylonian religion, and given Christian names. (Click on image to read online).

TOO LONG IN THE SUN

The book "Too Long in the Sun", traces pagan sun worship from the time of the Chaldeans, through the civilizations of the Babylonians, the Medo-Persians, the Grecians, the Romans and right on through present day, documenting its influence upon modern day "Christianity."

ELLEN G. WHITE

The greatest want of the world is the want of men, --men who will not be bought or sold; men who in their inmost souls are true and honest, men who do not fear to call sin by its right name; men whose conscience is as true to duty as the needle to the pole, men who will stand for the right though the heavens fall. -Education, p. 57. (1903)

Martin Luther

“The papacy is the seat of the true and real antichrist personally I declare that I owe the Pope no other obedience than that to Antichrist."

Abraham Lincoln

I see a very dark cloud in our horizon. And that cloud is coming from Rome.

John Adams

"If ever an association of people deserved eternal damnation, on this earth and in hell, it is this society of Loyola." (1816)

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN

GENERAL MARQUIS DE LAFAYETTE

It is my opinion that if the liberties of this country — the United States — are destroyed, it will be by the subtlety of the Roman Catholic Jesuit priests, for they are the most crafty, dangerous enemies to civil and religious liberty. They have instigated most of the wars in Europe.

Edmund Burke

"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."

Luigi Desanctis

“In a country where there are Jesuits, they must either rule or the country must go to ruin… it is they who rule the world.”

GALILEO GALILEI

I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.

Miguel de Cervantes

"Our greatest foes, and those we must chiefly combat, are within."

Frederick Douglass

The life of the nation is secure only while the nation is honest, truthful, and virtuous.

Eugenio María de Hostos

"I wish that they will say: In that island (Puerto Rico) a man was born who loved truth, desired justice, and worked for the good of men." Hostos wrote his own epitaph.

Sir Alexander Fraser Tytler

“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largess of the public treasury. From that time on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury, with the results that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's great civilizations has been 200 years. These nations have progressed through this sequence: From bondage to spiritual faith; from spiritual faith to great courage; from courage to liberty; from liberty to abundance; from abundance to selfishness; from selfishness to complacency; from complacency to apathy; from apathy to dependency; from dependency back again to bondage.”

Arturo Alfonso (Arthur) Schomburg

"The modern school without systematic lectures turns out many graduates who lack retention. No sooner has the sound of the word left their teacher's lips, the subject has been forgotten"

John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton (Lord Acton)

"I cannot accept your canon that we are to judge Pope and King unlike other men with a favourable presumption that they did no wrong. If there is any presumption, it is the other way, against the holders of power, increasing as the power increases. Historic responsibility has to make up for the want of legal responsibility. Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority: still more when you superadd the tendency or certainty of corruption by full authority. There is no worse heresy than the fact that the office sanctifies the holder of it."

Pastor Martin Niemöller

First they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out, because I was not a Jew. Then they came for the Communists, and I did not speak out, because I was not a Communist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out, because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak out for me.

U.S.M.C.Major General Smedley Butler

“War is just a racket,” “A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of people. Only a small inside group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the masses.” (Click on photo to read his book)

MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made straight and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together.

EDWARD R. MURROW

We cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home.

John F. Kennedy

“The very word 'secrecy' is repugnant in a free and open society; and we are as a people inherently and historically opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths and to secret proceedings. We decided long ago that the dangers of excessive and unwarranted concealment of pertinent facts far outweighed the dangers which are cited to justify it. ”

THEODORE ROOSEVELT

"To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but morally treasonable to the American public."

W.E.B. DUBOIS

"Drunk with power, we (the U.S.) are leading the world to hell in a new colonialism with the same old human slavery, which once ruined us, to a third world war, which will ruin the world."

JOHN V. LINDSAY

There are men – now in power in this country – who do not respect dissent, who cannot cope with turmoil, and who believe that the people of America are ready to support repression as long as it is done with a quiet voice and a business suit.

HENRY FORD

It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.

MARCUS M. GARVEY

"We Negroes believe in the God of Ethiopia, the everlasting God -- God the Son, God the Holy Ghost, the one God of all ages. That is the God in whom we believe, but we shall worship him through the spectacles of Ethiopia."

SIR WINSTON CHURCHILL

"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened."

ALAN BARTH

"The notion that the church, the press, and the universities should serve the state is essentially a Communist notion. In a free society these institutions must be wholly free -- which is to say that their function is to serve as checks upon the state."

EUGEN WEBER

"Wolves are wolves even if you choose to pretend they are chickens."

Craig Hulet

Is it progress when a cannibal uses a knife and fork?

Charles Goyette

"Just lay your freedom at out our feet, and we'll take care of everything for you."

GEORGE SANTAYANA

"He Who Does Not Remember History Is Condemned To Repeat It"

GEORGE ORWELL

"In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act."

ALDOUS HUXLEY

"...Ecclesiasticism without Christianity, the discipline of a monastic rule, not for God's sake or in order to achieve personal salvation but for the sake of the State and for the greater glory and power of the demagogue turned leader - this was the goal for which the systematic moving of the masses was to lead" (Brave New World Revisited, Huxley, 44-45)

Richard Maybury

Washington... has become an alien city-state that rules America, and much of the rest of the world, in the way that Rome ruled the Roman Empire.

Frank Zappa

"The illusion of freedom [in America] will continue as long as it's profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theater."

Sinclair Lewis

"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross."

Sabbath Commercial for Television

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfgNbEzJ7ZY&feature=player_embedded

James D. Standish, Esq.

"The United Nations can be a tool to advance the cause of religious freedom."

THE HOLY INQUISITON

"Remember The Inquisition; It won't be long before the fires are ignited all over again". Arsenio [2007]

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin S.J.

“The fate of mankind, as well as of religion, depends upon the emergence of a new faith in the future.”

Hillary R. Clinton

"What difference, at this point, does it make?!” -- At congressional panel on the U.S. Consulate attack in Benghazi, Libya, on Sept. 11, 2012.

Albert Pike

"To you, Sovereign Grand Instructors General, we say this, that you may repeat it to the Brethren of the 32nd, 31st and 30th degrees: 'the Masonic Religion should be, by all of us initiates of the high degrees, maintained in the purity of the LUCIFERIAN Doctrine. If Lucifer were not god, would Adonay (Jesus)... calumniate (spread false and harmful statements about) him?...Yes Lucifer is God..."

Fr. Peter-Hans Kolvenbach, S.J.

In fact, the four hundred and fifty years of the Society's history have been a record of fruitful association with the laity, in which the Ignatian spirit has manifested itself in the Church in many forms, and it continues to do so with vigor today.

Barack H. Obama

"Those nations that refuse to meet their obligations will be isolated, and denied the opportunity that comes with international integration" @ Prague 4/8/10

Pat Robertson

"The time has come when we must lay aside minor points of doctrinal differences and focus on the centralization of our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ."

JIMMY CARTER

"The policy from the White House has been to allocate funds to religious institutions, even those that channel those funds exclusively to their own particular group of believers in a particular religion," Carter said. "As a traditional Baptist, I've always believed in separation of church and state and honoured that premise when I was president, and so have all other presidents, I might say, except this one."

Dr. José Manuel Rodriguez Delgado

"We need a program of psychosurgery for political control of our society. The purpose is physical control of the mind. Everyone who deviates from the given norm can be surgically mutilated."

Saul Alinsky

"Think globally, act locally"

Joseph Ratzinger

"The Pope enjoys, by divine institution, "supreme, full, immediate, and universal power in the care of souls"

GEORGE W. BUSH

"Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists."

WILLIAM J. LEVADA

"I'm past the deer-in-the-headlights phase,"

CHARLES EDWARD COUGHLIN

On this earth you must belong to the church militant or get the hell out of it. That's the right word. You're either with me or against me' There is no middle ground in this battle between Christ and the anti-Christ. If you step out of (the battle), you're worse than those boys who ran off to Norway, Sweden, those boys who deserted the government. You're deserters, rotten deserters.

ROBERT SCHULLER

"It is time for Protestants to go to the shepherd (the pope) and say, `What do we have to do to come home?'" Dr. Robert Schuller, Los Angeles Herald Examiner, Sept. 19, 1987.

ADAM WEISHAUPT

Of all the means I know to lead men, the most effectual is a concealed mystery. The hankering of the mind is irresistible.

DAVID SPANGLER

No one will enter the New World Order unless he or she will make a pledge to worship Lucifer. No one will enter the New Age unless he will take a Luciferian Initiation.

ZBIGNIEW BRZENZINSKI

Soon it will be possible to assert almost continuous surveillance over every citizen and maintain up-to-date complete files containing even the most personal information about the citizen...

HENRY KISSINGER

"We will get a New World Order. We may not get it in our generation, but if we do not get it in our generation, we will get it in the next generation."